At a public hearing on April 21, the Senate of the Special Court agreed to a second plea bargain in the case of Matúš Grega, the former sole owner of non-licensed deposit company AGW.
Under the terms of the new plea bargain, Grega will immediately begin serving 8.5 years in prison and pay a Sk2 million fine, the SITA newswire wrote.
The court dismissed the previous plea bargain (seven years in prison) because it was too lenient. The new sentence was proposed based on the legal standpoint of the Special Court, explained special prosecutor Alexander Biro.
The court convicted Grega of running a pyramid scheme in which his company concluded 35,000 contracts for silent partnership and loans in its 50 branches between July 2000 and February 2002. AGW offered a profit of between 13.8 percent and 39.7 percent according to the length of the deposits. But when AGW failed to produce enough profit to pay the deposits, the whole system collapsed.
Grega has been held responsible for financial damage of close to Sk2.5 billion. SITA
Compiled by Zuzana Vilikovská from press reports
The Slovak Spectator cannot vouch for the accuracy of the information presented in its Flash News postings.
